Fragments of Memory (2)
The sharp, metallic tang hung in the air, disturbingly similar to the smell of human sweat. In the past, she might have simply wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant odor. But now that she had come to recognize that distinctive scent of blood, she couldn't ignore the icy tension that sent warning signals racing through her entire body.
Step.
Han Gamin moved deeper into the house, holding her breath as much as possible. At first, she'd coldly considered whether she should just run. But ignoring and avoiding an unexpected event like this meant she still hadn't found a single clue to clear the fourth floor.
'It might be something like memory loss.'
Why else would it be called trauma? It was entirely plausible that a child could develop dissociative amnesia from a powerful mental shock experienced at a young age.
“……”
Still, no matter how prepared she was to face the situation, the nauseating feeling was unavoidable. Even though she'd grown used to most brutal scenes since starting her climb up the tower, that was simply desensitization, not true overcoming.
Han Gamin entered the house with extreme caution. A moment later, she confronted the subtly veiled darkness and discovered a familiar figure collapsed on the floor, along with someone standing beside it.
“I had a feeling…”
But what confused her was how blurry the faces of the two figures she saw were. One thing was certain: the person on the ground was her father. At this hour, the only person who would be home was definitely her father, and the other was likely an uninvited guest.
Yet the face of the standing person appeared only as a hazy blur, as if proving that Han Gamin had suffered memory loss in her childhood.
“Ugh…”
The more she tried to focus on the face, the more her head throbbed. But that lasted only a moment. She couldn't tell how the uninvited guest interpreted her gaze, but it was clearly panicking as it looked at her.
An unpleasant voice mixed with jumbled noise. At first on high alert, Han Gamin realized from the trembling in the uninvited guest's voice that the shadow was afraid of the current situation.
The shadow's scream echoed off the walls of the small room, which had poor soundproofing. As the figure abruptly twisted and ran for the door, its face gradually became clearer.
“M… Mom…?”
A face both unfamiliar and familiar. She ran past Han Gamin and fled out the door. Han Gamin reached out to grab her mother, but perhaps from the shock, her arm refused to move as it should.
Now her mother had truly run away, and her father lay motionless on the floor with blood on his head, as if sunk in a deep sleep.
“What the hell.”
Han Gamin rushed to her father and immediately checked his breathing. In her memory, her father had lived until she entered college. But this was the fourth floor of the tower. Even if it was a world created from memories, it wasn't reality, so it wasn't that strange for the flow of time to be distorted.
“……He's still breathing.”
Only then did Han Gamin notice several soju bottles that usually rolled around on the floor were now shattered. It had been too dark to see clearly before, but now she spotted fine cracks in the wall. The small green glass shards glinting in those cracks led her to guess that the man had thrown a soju bottle at her mother's appearance.
And in that moment, her mother, sensing a threat to her life, must have somehow struck back with the bottle, creating the current situation.
'What should I do?'
Han Gamin stood at a crossroads. She could treat her father first and sort out the situation, or immediately chase after her fleeing mother to hear the full story of the incident. Choosing the former would obviously mean losing her mother, but choosing the latter would naturally erase the future where her detestable father lived.
“……”
But at that moment, one thought flashed through Han Gamin's mind.
“……Should I just leave them like this?”
Most of the trauma she carried was likely caused by her father. A man worse than a stranger, who had used violence since she was little and never once properly supported his young daughter. But Han Gamin shook her head, quickly shaking off the negative emotions trying to take over her thoughts.
'That wouldn't be overcoming it.'
She had been young. But even in her childhood, she had been more mature than any of her peers. To keep from collapsing under the misfortune and hardship that came her way, she had always done her best. Instead of resenting every crisis, she adapted and pondered better solutions over and over again. That was how she had proven her beliefs by getting accepted as the top student at one of Korea's most prestigious universities.
That was when she learned it. The greatest growth comes after the greatest crisis. She had realized this at a young age.
“Seriously, what kind of house doesn't even have a phone?”
She lamented the fact that there was neither a landline nor a cell phone in a 21st-century home as she headed for the entrance. The only place she could get help from was the landlord, whom she'd been avoiding because of the overdue rent. Calling an ambulance right away to get treatment seemed like the first priority.
But at that moment.
“Ugh…!”
From behind her came the groan of her father waking up. Clutching his aching head with his left hand, he slowly pushed himself up.
“Dad, are you o—”
Han Gamin started to approach him. Since he probably hadn't sobered up yet, she wanted to support him to prevent any further accidents.
But it took only one action to render all her concern meaningless.
Whoosh!
Crash!
“Kyaa!”
Forcing himself up, he hurled a soju bottle to the floor. His eyes were completely gone. His expression, filled with rage, radiated killing intent, and at that moment a memory she had forgotten resurfaced. She cautiously clutched her right shoulder.
“Damn it…”
She had never shown it to anyone, but on her adult shoulder was a long scar from a stab wound. She had been fuzzy on exactly when it happened, but now the memory was becoming crystal clear.
When she looked up, she saw her father, half out of his mind. And in his hand, a half-shattered glass bottle.
He was going to throw that glass bottle at her as she tried to run. The fragments would scatter everywhere, and shortly after, one of the larger pieces would embed itself in her arm. That was the event that would happen soon.
“Haa… haa…”
The sudden rush of memories complicated her thoughts. Putting aside the wound on her shoulder, she still couldn't recall how she had overcome this crisis.
'Should I fight?'
An elementary school girl's body was far too weak to subdue a drunk adult man. On top of that, as if her instincts were there for a reason, her arms and legs began to shake like leaves in the wind.
But she couldn't give up like this. This wasn't just about getting through a crisis; it was about overcoming trauma. The vague conviction that overcoming the current crisis would allow her to clear the fourth floor made her lower her stance so as not to provoke her opponent any further.
However.
Scrape.
As if what was meant to happen would happen, the man with bloodshot eyes lowered his head and lifted the half-broken soju bottle.
“W-wait!”
The situation was on a knife's edge. Han Gamin raised both hands to stop him from throwing the bottle, but he only hesitated for a moment. It didn't look like he had any intention of putting it down.
But then.
Knock, knock, knock.
— Is anyone there?
The small knocking sound resonated through the dark semi-basement room. And at the voice that followed, relief washed over Han Gamin's face.
“Haa, finally found you… You're the boss here, right?”
“……Which damn organization sent you?”
Having reached the end of the business premises, Park Jocheol stood before the boss, who stared at him with a frozen face after witnessing the fight.
“What sending? I just came because I wanted to make some money. By the way, is it okay if I get blood on the sofa? I'd like to sit down for a bit.”
The assailant who appeared dripping with sweat from head to toe. Behind him, dozens of subordinates who had failed to stop Park Jocheol were rolling on the floor, clutching their limbs.
“Huaa! I'm gonna die for real!”
To the boss, Park Jocheol was a monster in human form. No, after watching someone barge into a den of gangsters, completely drenched in blood all over his school uniform, and single-handedly devastate an entire organization, it was hard to tell if this was a dream or reality.
'An assassin from the Mandeuk-pa? Or maybe from the Doosik-pa…?'
Several organization names flashed through his mind, but he had never heard of any of them raising a monster like this.
But that lasted only a moment. The moment the man before him opened his mouth, the boss of the Hangang-pa, Hangang, had no choice but to stop thinking.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“……Yes?”
The naturally polite speech made Hangang feel an enormous sense of shame. It was humiliating to feel fear toward a mere high schooler, and the instinctive way he averted his eyes the moment he realized it only made it worse.
But what the young man said next was shockingly humble.
“Could you give me just one job? Something simple and clean… how should I put it. Just catching one really nasty bastard.”
From the assailant's reaction, it really seemed like he had come to this place looking for work.
“……Why?”
In a situation that made no sense, he could only utter a single question. No matter how you looked at it, someone with the skills of a professional shouldn't be saying such things while wearing a school uniform.
“Ah, don't ask about the reason and just give me the job. Whatever comes to mind right now.”
“A job, huh…”
But even as he spoke, he thought of a suitable situation to use Park Jocheol. Their business was moneylending and debt collection. Someone with such a ruthless temperament would undoubtedly be perfect for the job.
“W-well then… how about this?”
But regardless of how well he could do the work, the fact that the madman in a school uniform before him was dangerous remained unchanged. The request he brought up was to visit a bad customer who had been dodging repayment for a long time.
At that moment, an excellent idea flashed through the boss's mind: to throw both this monster and the human who drank all day instead of paying his debts into the same pit.